Title
Roads elicit negative movement and habitat-selection responses by wolverines (Gulo gulo luscus)
Author(s)
Scrafford, M.A., Avgar, T., Heeres, R. and Boyce, M.S. 2018.
Published
2018
Publisher
Behavioural Ecology 29(3): 534-542.
Abstract
The fine-scale behavior of wildlife when crossing roads and interacting with traffic is likely to mirror natural responses to predation risk
including not responding, pausing, avoiding, or increasing speed during crossing. We generated coarse-scale behavioral predictions
based on these expectations that could be assessed with GPS radiotelemetry. We evaluated our predictions using an integrated stepselection analysis of wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) space use in relation to spatially and temporally dynamic vehicle traffic on industrial
roads in northern Alberta. We compared support for alternative models of road avoidance, increased speed near roads, and road
avoidance and increased speed near roads. We predicted that wolverines would avoid roads and increase their speed near roads and
that these behaviors would increase with traffic volume. We found that vehicle traffic was relatively low (0–30 vehicles/12 h) but important for explaining wolverine space use. Top winter and summer models indicated that wolverines avoided and increased speed near
roads. Wolverine movement, but not avoidance, increased with traffic volume. We suggest that movement is a fine-scaled response
that is more responsive to vehicle traffic than habitat selection. We show that roads, regardless of traffic volume, reduce the quality
of wolverine habitats and that higher-traffic roads might be most deleterious. We suggest that wildlife behavior near roads should be
viewed as a continuum and that accurate modeling of behavior when near roads requires quantification of both movement and habitat
selection. Mitigating the effects of roads on wolverines would require clustering roads, road closures, or access management.
Keywords
boreal forest; Gulo gulo; habitat selection; movement; oil extraction; roads; step selection; traffic volume; wolverine
Full Citation
Matthew A. Scrafford, Tal Avgar, Rick Heeres, and Mark S. Boyce. 2018. Roads elicit negative movement and habitat-selection responses by wolverines (Gulo gulo luscus). Behavioural Ecology 29(3): 534-542.
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